


here's my heart (oh, take and seal it)

by alaseux



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Character Study, Gen, anyway i love her and also she's a lesbian, bc i have a lot of feelings about renee!!!!, kind of a, post-Baltimore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 06:20:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18231080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alaseux/pseuds/alaseux
Summary: Love is patient, love is kind, the apostle Paul tells her, and as she flips over into child’s pose, she feels the tension leak out of her shoulders at his words.(in which Renee loves her friends and her girlfriend and God)





	here's my heart (oh, take and seal it)

**Author's Note:**

> this morning in church i was thinking about how frustrated i get when fics erase renee's faith, so i was like !!! i'll just write my own dang fic and project some of my spiritual issues onto her bc thats what fictional characters are for babey!!!!  
> i wrote this in like an hour i'm sorry i just think about her a lot and i need to put my love for her into words  
> -title is a line from my favorite hymn, come thou fount

Renee clutches at her cross necklace, the metal stabbing into her fingers, as she watches Andrew watch Neil on the floor of a dingy motel room in Baltimore, Maryland. They’re speaking German, and Andrew looks as close to anguished as she’s ever seen him, and his hands are so meticulously gentle over Neil’s bandages that something in Renee wants to shout  _ You love him, you love him, you love him!  _ because she knows that Andrew is very, very good at bottling up his emotions. But that isn’t her place, so she stays quiet and still next to Allison, who is taking in the scene with wide eyes.

She nudges Renee. “About to win that bet,” Allison says, despite the pain they’ve all been through in the past few hours, and Renee loves her so much, she really does, but this is most certainly not the right time for this conversation, so she just nudges her back silently.

They sit there for a bit longer; at one point Neil just about threatens the FBI, which surprises absolutely no one but the FBI agents themselves, and then he turns around and Renee feels her blood run cold in her slowly-thawing veins at the sight of his injuries, and then he and Andrew don’t deny the team’s accusations and Renee watches the remaining Foxes descend into minor chaos after the two boys leave.

She has never loved anyone more than she has loved her Foxes, and her mother, and God.

Late that night, after Neil has told his truth and the team has accepted it in the easy way they’ve accepted everything else about him, Renee lays down next to Allison in the fox pile on the floor of Matt’s dorm room and lets out a long breath. She assesses herself the way her pastor taught her―she is physically sore, after the game and the riot; she is mentally exhausted, after the weight of witnessing the aftermath of Neil’s trauma and the long, long day she’s had; she is spiritually weak, because sometimes it is very hard for one to trust in the Lord when one has seen a boy carved up like a piece of meat. The last one seems the most pressing, so she addresses it first, and prays for Neil and Andrew and Allison and her mother and her team and the world at large until she falls asleep, warm and safe beneath a quilt she knitted a few years ago, fingers loosely intertwined with her girlfriend’s.

Renee wakes up earlier than everyone else the next morning, and carefully tiptoes out of the room to do her typical morning yoga/meditation combo. She rolls her yoga mat out in the bedroom of her dorm and stretches out into  apanasana pose, balancing  her Bible against her knees and flipping to 1 Corinthians, because she’s feeling sappier than usual.

_ Love is patient, love is kind,  _ the apostle Paul tells her, and as she flips over into child’s pose, she feels the tension leak out of her shoulders at his words.

“And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love,” she finishes aloud a bit later, because sometimes she just―needs to read things out loud to herself, to make sure she remembers them. “But the greatest of these is love.”

Allison appears in the doorway, hair tangled and greasy, mascara smudged under her eyes. She is the most beautiful thing Renee has ever seen.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hi,” Renee replies. 

“We’re going to get breakfast, I think,” Allison tells her. “As a team. Is that all right?”

“Sounds good,” says Renee, and it is―it really, really is. 

And they get breakfast, and Neil’s eyes light up when Allison suggests a team spring break vacation. He looks happier than Renee’s ever seen him, despite the miles of bandages on various parts of his body, and she notices that the tension has left his shoulders, too. Neil and she have always had more in common than either of them would care to admit, because they’ve both been shaped by pain and knives and rabbit-like tendencies. Andrew has a type, apparently, and she tells him this later, when they’re at the extravagant cabin in the mountains and Neil is downstairs playing ping pong with Kevin.

“You have a thing for runaways with dark pasts, I think,” she hums, sipping at her ginger ale and leaning against the railing of the balcony of her room. The sun set an hour ago, and the stars are out; the night breeze is cool and refreshing against her skin, and it whispers through the trees like a song.

He side-eyes her, drinking his own whiskey, and replies, “Explain.”

“Neil and me. We both have bad experiences with knives, we both have scars, and we are both in places we should not be, considering our violent histories. You are―something with him, and you are my best friend. You have chosen similar companions, Andrew.” Against her will, her lips flick up into a smile. “You’re growing predictable.”

Andrew huffs out a breath, but he respects her too much to try to refute her claim. He takes a drink before saying, “I can’t stand both of you. Another bullet point for your list.”

“I don’t know about that one,” she says, and after a pause in the conversation, she murmurs, “I’m very glad you have him.”

“I don’t―” Andrew begins, but then he catches her eye, and stops. He takes a deep breath. “As am I.”

Renee feels her heart lurch at those three words, because a year ago, Andrew would have denied everything she’s said over the past five minutes. She has never been prouder of him, and if he was anyone else, she would probably be wrapping him up in a bone-crushing hug right now.

Instead, she settles for asking if she can hold his hand. When he nods, she intertwines their fingers together on the railing, and she can feel his pulse beneath his skin, slow and steady and desperately alive.

“I’m happy for you, Andrew,” and she means it so, so much, because he is the best friend she has ever had, and she is his, too, and she wants him to know how much she loves him.

“And I, you,” he mumbles, like he doesn’t want to admit it, and her smile grows into a toothy grin.

**Author's Note:**

> i love renee walker so much and honestly it shows  
> leave me a comment/kudos if ur feelin it! they keep me goin i luv y'all


End file.
